Gratified
by TStabler
Summary: When Thanksgiving rolls around, sometimes it's easy to forget the reasons to be thankful in the midst of stress, visiting family, and holiday traffic. But when the reasons for endless gratuity are brought to mind, the heart seems somehow whole, and nothing else matters. E/O Holiday Oneshot, M for language.


**A/N: Sorry for the delay in updates. Hurricane Sandy hit my area very hard, and as we cleaned up and spent days in the dark, work got in the way of the rest of my life. But I am thankful for the blessings I have, and I wish all of you and your loved ones a very happy Thanksgiving. **

**DISCLAIMER: Dick Wolf owns SVU and all related characters. TStabler owns the following story.**

"This fucking blows."

As much as Elliot wanted to tell his oldest son to watch his language, he couldn't. He wholeheartedly agreed with the eighteen year old. "Yeah," he sighed, then he hit the steering wheel harder than he had the other seventeen times.

"Please, Dad," Lizzie moaned, "Stop honking the horn. We've established that it doesn't make the cars in front of us move any faster."

"Grandma's stuffing is probably in the oven," Maureen sighed. "I can't believe we're missing how the house smells when she's cooking."

"Look, I'm sorry, but I can't control the damned traffic!" Elliot heaved a few harsh breaths before closing his eyes. "Sorry. I didn't mean..."

"Whatever," Kathleen scoffed. "You know your last minute shopping excursion is the reason we're getting a late start." She glared at her father through the rearview mirror. "We all know what you went out to get, too, Dad."

Elliot grinned. "Not all of us," he smirked at Olivia, in the passenger seat, and he chuckled as she obliviously texted someone, her smartphone keys clicking away.

Dickie rolled his eyes. "Pretty sure she knows, too, Dad," he groaned. "We're moving," he pointed toward the windshield.

"Yeah, a whole two feet," Olivia joked, proving she wasn't as oblivious as the rest of the group had thought. She sighed and pulled open the glove compartment, pulling something out of it and slapping it on the dashboard.

Elliot's eyes widened. "Are you..." he looked at her and tilted his head. "You hate when I..."

"I hate when you flash your badge to cut the line at Stop and Shop," she interrupted. "This...this is different." She hit the switch and the blue light whirred to life. "Drive."

With a renewed enthusiasm for the highway, Elliot chuckled and turned the wheel, speeding out onto the shoulder.

"Finally!" Lizie yelled.

"Told him to do that an hour ago," Maureen mumbled under her breath.

Olivia looked over her shoulder at the kids. "Sometimes, you just have to make the decisions for him."

"Mom never did that," Kathleen laughed. "Always just tried to convince him she was right."

"Why do you think they fought all the time?" Maureen spouted at her sister.

Elliot snorted. "If only you knew," he said lowly, and the chuckling to his right told him Olivia heard him.

Slowly, her hand reached for his over the gear shift, and she cupped his knuckles as they turned off the highway's exit. "You sure this is a good idea?" she asked him quietly.

He nodded. "My mother knew, Liv. Long before I did." His thumb swooped up from under her fingers and he stroked the side of her hand and smiled. "It's a brilliant idea."

"Dad," Dickie said in a warning tone, his mouth hanging open, as he pointed to a house in the distance. "Did she do what I think she did?"

Elliot's face fell and his smile faded as he saw what his son was seeing. "Holy Mary..."

"Mother of God," Olivia finished for him. "When you told her I was spending Thanksgiving with you, what exactly did you say?"

"I told her I was bringing home my second wife," he spat, turning into his mother's bright-light-lined driveway. "She knew I meant you, and she laughed. She fucking whooped and hollered."

Olivia bit her lip. "Well, despite her cackling, I think she took you seriously," she said, getting out of the car and staring at the enormous twinkling lawn ornaments shaped like a bride and groom, spinning around on a mechanical track.

"Grandma...sparkles," Maureen shrugged as she got out of the van, too. "If Kathleen ever does this to our lawn..."

"Hey!" Olivia turned, suddenly fuming. "Your sister's situation is different, as is being handled. Don't even compare..."

"Liv!" Kathleen interjected, quickly resting her hands on Olivia's shoulders. "She was just trying to get to me, she didn't mean..." she blinked. "You really got defensive there," she whispered.

Elliot pulled Olivia's arm into his. "She always does where you guys are concerned." He made sure Lizzie got Eli out of the car before adding, "All of you."

"Yeah, we get it," Dickie said with a smile, "Liv is our Guardian Angel. Can we go inside now?"

"You hungry?" Elliot narrowed his eyes.

Dickie shook his head. "No, the stupid dancing couple on the lawn is making me nauseous."

The family laughed, then made their way up the hill, where Bernie Stabler was waiting with an open door, and open arms. "For your information, that is Mister and Missus Claus, I just haven't had the time to install their red light suits just yet."

"Sure, Ma," Elliot said, kissing his mother's cheek. he whispered in her ear, "Don't think I didn't notice the 'Just Married' sign on the back of the sleigh on the roof."

Bernie smirked at her son and shrugged. "I'm your mother, and I might not live to see the day you two really do get married, so I'm living vicariously through my holiday decorations, you gonna arrest me?"

The family went quiet.

"You didn't tell her?" Olivia asked, stunned.

"Tell me what?" Bernie crossed her arms and looked at her son.

Elliot glared at Olivia and then looked at his kids. "Go unpack, guys. Get washed up for dinner." He waited until his five children were scattered around the house then looked at his mother. "You made those creamed onions, right? Eli loves playing in the sauce, and Liv..."

Bernie shook her head and held up a finger. "No, you don't dare change the subject on me." She shook her finger at him. "Elliot Joseph Stabler, what have you been keeping from me?"

Rolling his eyes and sighing, he took off his coat and tossed it over the nearest piece of furniture. "I quit the force, Ma," he said, shrugging.

Bernie gasped. "You...the last time I spoke to you, you said you were going to the commendations ceremony with Olivia and..."

"With Olivia," he repeated, emphasizing. "She won an award for excellence in interrogation," he said proudly. "And I was there as her date, not her partner."

Bernie shook her head, disbelieving. "You loved your job, Elliot. So very much. Why on Earth would you..." then, as if something hit her in the head, she jerked back and tilted her head. "You love something more, though. Or..." she turned to Olivia. "Someone."

Elliot smiled and walked toward Olivia, taking both of her hands in his. "Ma, when I shot that girl...when she died...in my arms...all I could think was...what if it wasn't me, what if I didn't pull the trigger, what if I was too late and she turned and fired again..."

"At Olivia," Bernie said in an understanding whisper.

He nodded once. "I knew at that moment, all those years of telling her I would kill for her, no matter what...I realized what it all really meant." He sat on the arm of the couch and pulled Olivia down into his lap. "I took a few days, needed to clear my head, get the image of that girl's life fading...out of my head." He blinked and cleared his throat. "When I went back, I saw her at her desk, and I couldn't...I couldn't make another stupid mistake so I marched into Cragen's office and I told him the truth."

"The real truth or the kind of truth that would save your ass," Bernie said with a laugh. She knew her son well.

Elliot chuckled. "The real truth," he said. "I told him I was in love with her, that I'd spent the week in therapy, dealing with things, talking to Kathy...and he told me...that I couldn't be with her and be her partner at the same time, because we'd already chosen each other over victims, over the job...adding emotion and intimacy wasn't something he thought we could handle without one of us ending up dead."

Bernie looked from him to Olivia, then back again. "You quit your job...for her?"

"I'd do anything for her," he said, serious. "That's why I wanted her here with us for Thanksgiving." He kissed Olivia's temple. "I love you," he told her. "More than anyone has a right to love another person. And I am so...thankful for you."

"For me?" Olivia screwed up her face at him.

"If you...God, If you weren't...mine..." he scraped his teeth along his lip. "You saved me. A thousand times. From getting arrested, getting fired, from people who were out to get me, from myself..." he kissed her lips.

"Partners do that," she shrugged. "You've saved my ass..."

He shook his head and placed a finger over her lips, silencing her. "You saved my kids, all of them, some more than once." He blinked. "You don't realize how much of your own life you sacrificed to make sure I kept mine. I know what you did for me, Liv. I know it all."

"Yeah, says the man who mortgaged his house for my bail," she ran a hand through his hair.

He smiled at her. "I have, since the moment I met you, been thankful for every breath you take, Olivia Benson, and now I'm thankful that you're mine, in every way, and now...we can save each other for the rest of our lives, and not just until retirement." He kissed her nose again. "You know what I mean, Liv. And I wanted you to be here, because it just isn't Thanksgiving without the only reason I still have anything to be thankful for at all. You."

Olivia was stunned into silence, her eyes glued to his, her mouth frozen in a shocked half-smile.

Bernie sniffled. "Well, go on, kiss him!"

Olivia laughed and cupped his face, slowly pulling him closer to him. Her lips touched his and they were lost, suddenly ignoring his mother and the kids who'd walked back into the room.

Bernie shooed them all into the kitchen. "Leave them be for now," she said, ushering them back enough to close the kitchen door. "They just need a moment."

"Well, we know what Dad's thankful for this year," Maureen said with a slight smirk.

Dickie leaned over the island counter. "What are you most thankful for this year, Grandma?"

Bernie looked at the closed door to the living room before turning back to her grandson. "Richard," she said, "I'm thankful for the same damned thing."

A/N: HAPPY THANKSGIVING


End file.
